Playstation All-Star Battle Royale

[Young Avenger]

To put it simply, this is Sony's answer to Smash Bros.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/hi...l-stars/729627

http://www.destructoid.com/preview-p...e-226561.phtml

The rumors were true, and now that I've played it, I'm glad. Sony has been working on a mashup fighting game that pits many of their first-party characters against each other in a Smash Bros. style four-player match. This brawler was shown off for the first time earlier this week at a PlayStation press event, where I got to mash buttons playing as Kratos, Parappa the Rapper, Sly Cooper and others. They call it PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and it's going to be a pretty big deal.

While All-Stars pulls from two decades of Sony game history, we were only shown six characters and four stages at this event. This means that you should probably get ready for the inevitable slow character rollout, with what's sure to be more reveals at E3 later this year. Still, this early look was enough to get a solid picture of what to expect in the final version, and from what I've seen they have a pretty good thing going on here.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is being developed by SuperBot, a company purpose built within Sony Santa Monica for the job. The team consists of members with extensive backgrounds in fighting and combat titles, and they come with an understanding of how their title will have to appeal to a wide audience, satisfying both casual gamers and hardcore fighting game fans. We've only seen a small taste, but it's clear that these guys know their shit.

Through their work, the game's control is really easy to learn, and not unlike other four-player brawlers out there. Either the left analog stick or the d-pad controls movement of your character. I found that I like the d-pad a bit more as button commands can be combined with directional presses to access additional moves, with the d-pad giving me better control of those. The right stick will let you perform throws, with different ones assigned to each direction. The X button jumps, and the other three face buttons are assigned to different attacks. L1 blocks and R1 picks up items.

The last control, assigned to R2, executes a super move. While fighting, you'll build up a meter that lets you perform a super move that knocks out characters. Also, some attacks knock AP (action points) out of opponents, letting others pick them up to fill up these meters. There are three levels of supers, each one stronger than the last, and each requiring another filling of this meter. If you can manage to land hits and survive long enough, a level three super can knock out all other players, earning you points.

This brings us to All-Stars' battle system and scoring. Victory goes to the player with the highest number of KOs; knocking out a character adds to your score while being knocked out subtracts from it. So, there's nothing in the way of health bars here, as health doesn't really matter in the long run. This makes for a game that's really easy to get into, as there's no technical scoring to learn.

There's more to the article but that's what needs to be known

[Alex]

....
Yknow, theres something about Kratos fighting parappa and like...sackboy that i find unappealing.

[Simbob4000]

Well...that didn't look very good, and I'm not even sure who a few of those characters are. They, should have come out of the gate with Ico, the Indiana Jones guy whose name I can't think of, maybe that knight from MediEvil. Sony doesn't really have the characters for this to be a thing.

Looking at more stuff about it, it sounds kind of like Super Smash Bros. crossed with Power Stone 2.

[Alex]

Well...that didn't look very good, and I'm not even sure who a few of those characters are. They, should have come out of the gate with Ico, the Indiana Jones guy whose name I can't think of, maybe that knight from MediEvil. Sony doesn't really have the characters for this to be a thing.

Looking at more stuff about it, it sounds kind of like Super Smash Bros. crossed with Power Stone 2.

Lack of name characters is a problem, i think another issue is that the nintendo characters largely fit together, the vast majority are sort of cute and cuddly.
The sony characters, aside from being much less popular overall, aren't really all that similar.

[Darkfoxz87]

I'm REALLY excited for this. Is is a SUPER SMASH BROS rip off? Yeah. Dose it mean it is bad? No.

Sly Cooper VS. Cole MacGrath VS. Kratos. VS. Jak? I'm sold.

I WANT MAJOR KIRRAHE AS A PLAYABLE CHARACTER! (Kevin Butler too!)

I wish they Kept 'Title Fight' though, the new name sounds, corny.

[Fonecrusher]

Lack of well known characters won't be a problem, Sony have already confirmed the appearance of 3rd party characters, I would be very surprised if the likes of Solid Snake, Cloud Strife, Lara Croft, Crash Bandicoot and Dante don't show up. Looks good so far, my only gripe is the only way to defeat an opponent is with a Super... I think it creates an over reliance on them and basically means whoever can build their bar to lvl3 first wins, I don't want to be wailing on a guy completely dominating them and then he whips out a lvl3 and insta-kills everybody on screen, that would be lame.

[Guest_1001]

Well...that didn't look very good, and I'm not even sure who a few of those characters are. They, should have come out of the gate with Ico, the Indiana Jones guy whose name I can't think of, maybe that knight from MediEvil. Sony doesn't really have the characters for this to be a thing.

Looking at more stuff about it, it sounds kind of like Super Smash Bros. crossed with Power Stone 2.

I never even thought about Sir Daniel Fortesque. Great choice! And it'd be the second game featuring him in a crossover with Sweet Tooth -- the first being Everybody's Golf 2/Hot Shots Golf 2 -- unless there's more I don't know about. Which brings up another point; what with PaRappa being in this game, it's a great opportunity to bring back Gex.

I'd like to see Crash Bandicoot make an appearance and I'd be very surprised if he didn't. I bought a PS1 pretty much solely for Crash Bandicoot, was a huge fan of his throughout my childhood and part of me died when I played Crash Bash (the first Crash game after Naughty Dog sold the rights). By Wrath Of Cortex, it was all over.

[Nyssane]

Fat Princess is playable? Sold.

[Havok83]

Well...that didn't look very good, and I'm not even sure who a few of those characters are. They, should have come out of the gate with Ico, the Indiana Jones guy whose name I can't think of, maybe that knight from MediEvil. Sony doesn't really have the characters for this to be a thing.

IDA

1. Kratos (God of War)
2. Athena (God of War)
3. Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
4. Elena or Chloe (Uncharted)
5. Ratchet (Ratchet and Clank)
6. Captain Qwark (Ratchet and Clank)
7. Sly Cooper (Sly Cooper)
8. Bentley (Sly Cooper)
9. Jak (Jak and Daxter)
10. Daxter (Jak and Daxter)
11. Nathan Hale (Resistance)
12. Chimera (Resistance)
13. Parappa (Parappa the Rappa)
14. Cole McGrath (Infamous)
15. Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet)
16. Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
17. Flying Fox (Heavenly Sword)
18. Spike (Ape Escape)
19. Specter (Ape Escape)
20. Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal)
21. Axel (Twisted Metal)
22. Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil)
23. Sev (Killzone)
24. Radec (Killzone)
25. Fat Princess (Fat Princess)
26. Tatepon (Patapon)
27. Buzz (Buzz!)
28. Ico (Ico)
29. Lazarus Jones (Ghosthunter)
30. Jen (Primal)
31. Gabe Logan (Syphon Filter)
32. Ellen (Folklore)
33. Congar (War of the Monsters)
34. Yosh-tsune (Genji)
35. Norman Jayden (Heavy Rain)
36. Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
37. Raiden (Metal Gear)
38. Everret (Starhawk)

Thats my dream list. I hope a good chunk of them make it in. And then there's also Crash, Spyro and Rayman, all 3 of whom would make great additions

I wish they Kept 'Title Fight' though, the new name sounds, corny.

Title Fight? Thats so generic and says nothing to make it stand out or differntiate it as a celebration of the Playstation brand. Even if they didnt go with what they did, Title Fight as the final title would have been awful.

[Alex]

BTW, the crash bandicoot games were never good, just saying.
A post Mario 64 world having a platformer that dull and linear should have been inexsuable, cute adds though.

[Havok83]

BTW, the crash bandicoot games were never good, just saying.
A post Mario 64 world having a platformer that dull and linear should have been inexsuable, cute adds though.

Correction, they werent going after it became a third party franchise. The Naughty Dog games were solid. Third game especially was a pretty fun game. Regardless, Crash was arguably the Playstation's premiere mascot. Having him in this would make alot of sense and would make for a great addition if Sony can secure it

[Guest_1001]

BTW, the crash bandicoot games were never good, just saying.
A post Mario 64 world having a platformer that dull and linear should have been inexsuable, cute adds though.

... What? Alex, you've officially gone insane.

Mario 64 was a clunky, overrated mess of a game and I fail to see how Crash Bandicoot was linear. As well as certain levels having alternate paths through them, certain levels also had alternate routes if you had coloured gems, certain levels had extra-hard routes if you hadn't died up until that point, all on-foot levels had completely optional bonus routes and some could be finished early by taking a leave of logic and doing something incredibly stupid to find a hidden level (purposefully killing yourself on a certain pterodactyl in 3, hurting yourself on TNT to reach a platform on the surfboard in 2, etc). I'm not seeing any linearity there. The on-foot levels managed to stave off repetition with things like the chase levels (be it a boulder, big angry polar bear or triceratops), firefly levels and the surfboard in 2 and the small dinosaur you could ride in 3 (who offered more variation in gameplay than, say, Yoshi ever had). The non-on-foot levels were greatly varied too, whether it was on a warthog/polar bear/tiger, plane, motorbike, jetski, jetpack or underwater in scuba gear ... and there's probably more I'm forgetting about.

And then there's the boss fights ...

There aren't any ways I can think of that Mario 64 surpassed the Crash games. Characters, levels, bosses, story, writing, graphics, gameplay ... the marsupial beats the plumber in every one.

Running and jumping is better in Super Mario Brothers 3, you could play that instead.
It also has more variety.

So ... running in a straight line collecting coins is better than running in a straight line collecting fruit?

Also, it didn't have more variety. See above.

Yes, some people found it fun.
Some people think it was an entirely unoriginal game that did nothing that hadn't been done in countless games for years.
Like some people liked Mass Effect 3s ending, or think Final Fantay 13 was a good game.

What did Mario 64 do except add a dimension to an already-tired series, exactly? Oh, and make the controls worse. I'll admit I played Mario 64 after Crash Bandicoot but still couldn't imagine what anyone ever saw in it. I compared it more to Spyro than Crash but even then it came off unfavourably.

Hell, I liked Croc more than Mario 64 ...

[Simbob4000]

IDA

1. Kratos (God of War)
2. Athena (God of War)
3. Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
4. Elena or Chloe (Uncharted)
5. Ratchet (Ratchet and Clank)
6. Captain Qwark (Ratchet and Clank)
7. Sly Cooper (Sly Cooper)
8. Bentley (Sly Cooper)
9. Jak (Jak and Daxter)
10. Daxter (Jak and Daxter)
11. Nathan Hale (Resistance)
12. Chimera (Resistance)
13. Parappa (Parappa the Rappa)
14. Cole McGrath (Infamous)
15. Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet)
16. Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
17. Flying Fox (Heavenly Sword)
18. Spike (Ape Escape)
19. Specter (Ape Escape)
20. Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal)
21. Axel (Twisted Metal)
22. Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil)
23. Sev (Killzone)
24. Radec (Killzone)
25. Fat Princess (Fat Princess)
26. Tatepon (Patapon)
27. Buzz (Buzz!)
28. Ico (Ico)
29. Lazarus Jones (Ghosthunter)
30. Jen (Primal)
31. Gabe Logan (Syphon Filter)
32. Ellen (Folklore)
33. Congar (War of the Monsters)
34. Yosh-tsune (Genji)
35. Norman Jayden (Heavy Rain)
36. Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
37. Raiden (Metal Gear)
38. Everret (Starhawk)

Thats my dream list. I hope a good chunk of them make it in. And then there's also Crash, Spyro and Rayman, all 3 of whom would make great additions

Title Fight? Thats so generic and says nothing to make it stand out or differntiate it as a celebration of the Playstation brand. Even if they didnt go with what they did, Title Fight as the final title would have been awful.

Like I said, they don't have the characters for this, in the land of video game characters that's like the D and Z team. I'm not sure who some of those characters are, and some of them I kind of know of I could careless about using in a fighting game.

Lack of well known characters won't be a problem, Sony have already confirmed the appearance of 3rd party characters, I would be very surprised if the likes of Solid Snake, Cloud Strife, Lara Croft, Crash Bandicoot and Dante don't show up. Looks good so far, my only gripe is the only way to defeat an opponent is with a Super... I think it creates an over reliance on them and basically means whoever can build their bar to lvl3 first wins, I don't want to be wailing on a guy completely dominating them and then he whips out a lvl3 and insta-kills everybody on screen, that would be lame.

Besides Crash I wouldn't really count on some of those, Dante is in Capcom's vs fighting game, and Snake is in Smash Bros. Until we get some kind of idea of who the third party characters are I would say it is a problem, the third party guys may just be characters that were once Sony characters, like Crash and Spyro.

It doesn't sound like whoever can build a level 3 first will win, watch some of the other videos they have about the game on Gametrailers.

[Young Avenger]

....
Yknow, theres something about Kratos fighting parappa and like...sackboy that i find unappealing.

PaRappa being this game is enough to make me want to play it. The crossover stages are cool